i have a hypo question- assuming almost no schools are conservative do those that are conservative considered suffer in 'prestige' becuz more liberal schools will look down on them??? i think for the most part schools are about where they are but it always seems people on these boards think higher of boalt then what everything else would indicate and lower of schools like nd and byu

Probably yes when it comes to reputation in academia. Since lawyers and judges are more evenly split, probably not as much there.

Nope.. assume he has fiscal discipline and has saved $15K a year for 10 years from age 26-36 (basically what he would have to do to pay his loans) at 6% interest (conservative based on the stock markets average return over that long of a period of time) and you end up with $840K at age 60. If you bump that up to 8% (closer to the performance of the Dow) you end up with ~$1.5 million (unadjusted for inflation).

Don't forget.. that $150K properly invested could be pushing a million by the time you retire.

By the way, once the initial shock wears off and the numbers set into your mind, turning down Harvard doesn't seem quite as ridiculous. If you do go visit, be careful of the bookstores. Seeing all the Harvard gear can mess with your head.

I would like to reiterate trying to find Harvard alums in the Toronto area. I talked to one in the area I want to practice and he basically told me it wasn't worth it for what I wanted to do in my career.

I love how liberals continue to try and throw this "highly educated" garbage as some sign of superiority.

Education is a place to be an idealistic dreamer. It is apart from the real world. It doesn't deal with profit motive and lives in a bubble where government money falls out of the sky. That environment is bound to draw a certain type of person.

Big business is also likely to draw a certain type of person (much more conservative in general). These people may not have PhD's from school X, but are equally intelligent.

Simply, it is a matter of environment and personality, not intelligence.